imod2obj(1) General Commands Manual imod2obj(1)
NAME
imod2obj - Make a OBJ model from an IMOD model file.
SYNOPSIS
imod2obj [options] IMOD_model obj_file [mtl_file]
DESCRIPTION
Convert an IMOD model file to the Wavefront .obj text file format which
a very simple but common format for interchange of 3D meshes between
various 3D graphics programs. OBJ files are generally much more lim-
ited than VRML 2.0 and other 3D file formats as there is no object
hierarchy and they lack support for primitives like spheres. As a
result, all spheres are converted to meshes and all meshes are listed
in a flat array of "groups". OBJ files do not store material proper-
ties, but they do allow materials to be referenced in a separate "Mate-
rial Template Library" (MTL) file which is generated if you include a
second output file (mtl_file.mtl) on the end of the command. While OBJ
files are widely used, not all computer programs will know how to
interpret MTL file and thus it's likely your color and material infor-
mation will be lost.
The model produced will generally have similar attributes to those set
in 3dmod's ModelView before the conversion. Specifically, objects that
are turned off will not be included in the OBJ file. OBJ files can and
do not allow contours to be rendered as contours, thus only objects
which have been meshed will appear in the OBJ file.
OPTIONS-l Use low-resolution meshes, if any are available. The default is
to use the highest resolution meshes contained in the model.
Low resolution meshes can be produced with the -l option to
imodmesh.
-a Output all objects (by default those switched off are omitted).
-r Rotates the entire model such that the Z axis becomes up in Y.
This feature is useful when exporting to animation programs
-n Output normals (off by default as most 3d programs which import
OBJ can generate their own normals if missing).
-s# Specifies number of segments to render per sphere - the more
segments the nicer the sphere, but the more faces and thus
longer to load. Think of this number as the number of lines of
longitude (the ones that go up and down). The default value is
8 and the number of (horizontal) lines of latitude is made half
this value.
-i Print spheres as icosahedrons (a surface with 20 equilateral
triangles) instead of "standard spheres".
AUTHORS
Andrew Noske
SEEALSO3dmodv, imodmesh, imod2vrml, imod2vrml2BUGS
Email bug reports to mast at colorado dot edu, and CC to
andrew_noske<AT>yahoo<DOT>com.
IMOD 4.9.10 imod2obj(1)